The Madras High Court on Thursday directed the Superintendent of the central prison at Puzhal near here to grant 30 days of ordinary leave to B. Robert Payas, 50, a life convict in former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination case, to make arrangements for the marriage of his 28-year-old son residing in the Netherlands.
A Division Bench of Justices M. M. Sundresh and RMT. Teekaa Raman ordered that he may be granted leave on the same terms and conditions which they had imposed while granting similar relief to another convict S. Nalini in July this year. The orders were passed after hearing senior counsel R. Shunmugasundaram for the petitioner.
Making it clear that the government should bear the expenses for police escorts during his stay outside the prison and that he should refrain from given interviews to the media or meeting political leaders, the judges recorded the statement of Payas would stay at his lawyer R. Chandrasekar’s residence in Chennai.
In his affidavit, the convict had said he was a Sri Lankan refugee who came to India with his wife R. Prema on September 20, 1990. At that time, his wife was pregnant, and gave birth to a baby boy on February 6, 1991 at a private hospital in Chetpet. Subsequently, he was arrested in connection with the former PM’s assassination case on June 10, 1991. A special investigation team of the CBI had prosecuted the case, which ended up in the conviction of 25 individuals by a designated court under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act on January 28, 1998. All 25 convicts were sentenced to death after being found guilty under a host of penal provisions.
“Apart from the common charges, I was also convicted under the TADA Act individually and sentenced to life imprisonment. The Supreme Court on May 11, 1999 altered my death penalty to life imprisonment by a majority order of a Bench of three judges. In fact, one of the judges, Justice D.P. Wadhwa, acquitted me of all charges and set me at liberty,” he claimed.
Noting that he had been under continuous incarceration for the last 28 years without availing himself of either ordinary leave or emergency leave for any reason whatsoever, though the Tamil Nadu Suspension of Sentence Rules of 1982 provided for such a benefit to those who had exhibited good conduct in prison, the petitioner said he was now in dire need of 30 days of leave.
Even as he was under incarceration, his wife had travelled back to Sri Lanka, along with their child, in 1993. “My son Robert Payas Thamilko had moved to Netherlands eight years ago. He has now attained the age of marriage. As a responsible father, I am duty-bound to take care of his future life,” the petitioner said and sought leave for a month.
